Application Lifecycle Management » Newshttp://tech.opensystemsmedia.com/application-lifecycle-management
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is integral not only in the military and avionics embedded technology realm - rife with product obsolescence - but also in the larger, more fast-paced embedded realm encompassing consumer, medical, smart grid, gaming, and many other application types. In essence, anywhere embedded software development takes place, an ALM software platform can help designers and program managers to manage and coordinate all of an application’s or project’s artifacts and activities. Specifically, an ALM platform provides holistic coordination of all software design processes as a whole: system design, modeling, requirements management, defect management, test management, configuration management, and release management. Additionally, there’s the challenge of managing safety-critical applications’ traceability across disciplines; however, this too can be managed with an ALM software platform. Some ALM software includes compliance with standards such as MISRA, DO-178B, and the Homeland Security Agency’s Common Weakness Enumerations (CWE), among others. Closely tied to ALM is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), which enables software designers to increase operational efficiency during a product’s lifetime. The Bill of Materials (BoM) is central to this process of growing efficiency, and PLM software provides a way to manage a product’s BOM from conception to obsolescence.Mon, 19 Feb 2018 15:25:35 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3Lockheed Martin moves to mature Freedom-variant FFG(X) conceptual designhttp://mil-embedded.com/news/lockheed-martin-moves-to-mature-freedom-variant-conceptual-design/
http://mil-embedded.com/news/lockheed-martin-moves-to-mature-freedom-variant-conceptual-design/#commentsMon, 19 Feb 2018 15:23:03 +0000Mariana Iriarte, Technology Editorhttp://tech.opensystemsmedia.com/application-lifecycle-management/?guid=abd75bde2399b12d338d13dc77f77468Lockheed Martin submitted its Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) parent design in response to the U.S. Navy’s FFG(X) conceptual design solicitation with Fincantieri Marinette Marine as its shipbuilder and Gibbs & Cox as its naval architect.

The Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine team is currently in full-rate production of the Freedom-variant of the LCS, and has delivered five ships to the U.S. Navy to date. There are eight ships in various stages of construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, with one more in long-lead production.

REAN Cloud worked with Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) — a DoD organization tasked with accelerating commercial innovation to the U.S. military — in order to facilitate prototyping and procurement of the full range of cloud adoption requirements, from infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to application assessments, migrations, and operations.

The newly announced production Other Transaction (OT) contract is modeled on an innovative OT prototype project for the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), DoD’s first large-scale infrastructure assessment and cloud migration, which was completed by REAN Cloud last year.

As part of the production OT award, REAN Cloud’s processes will enable USTRANSCOM and other DoD organizations quickly migrate legacy applications to a government-approved, commercial cloud environment of their choice.

REAN Cloud managing partner Sekhar Puli said of the DoD award: “With Firm Fixed-Pricing (FFP) and automated procurement, we are changing old mindsets of typical vendor relationships. Our DoD customers can now achieve the same efficiencies available to the commercial sector as they seek to design, migrate, automate, manage, and scale systems and databases running in the cloud.”

]]>http://mil-embedded.com/news/dod-awards-cloud-solutions-services-contract-with-950-million-ceiling/feed/atom/0USAF commits $81 million to modernize missile launch control systemhttp://mil-embedded.com/news/usaf-commits-81-million-to-modernize-missile-launch-control-system/
http://mil-embedded.com/news/usaf-commits-81-million-to-modernize-missile-launch-control-system/#commentsMon, 05 Feb 2018 16:22:03 +0000Lisa Daigle, Assistant Managing Editorhttp://tech.opensystemsmedia.com/application-lifecycle-management/?guid=c11abd8c0ab9ee7cc81292d3cc69e0f2Under the terms of the contract, Lockheed Martin will conduct studies for TMRR and produce a comprehensive design and prototype of the new ALCS-R system. Defense communications firm L3 Technologies will partner with Lockheed Martin on this effort; L3 is slated to lead the development of the secure communications architecture for ALCS-R.

The Air Force’s overall modernization plan for the ALCS includes upgraded radios, launch control systems, and cryptographic devices; the new system will be ruggedized and hardened and will implemente state-of-the-art cybersecurity techniques to protect the system from attack. Lockheed Martin and USAF expect that the new system will be upgradeable through 2075.

The Airborne Launch Control System-Replacement (ALCS-R) program — slated for fielding by 2024 — is intended to provide a survivable alternate launch capability for the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBMs). ALCS-R will also enable users to command and control the future Ground Based Strategic Deterrent missile system, which is anticipated to replace the Minuteman III missiles starting in the late 2020s.

]]>http://mil-embedded.com/news/usaf-commits-81-million-to-modernize-missile-launch-control-system/feed/atom/0Rockwell Collins to provide supply chain management support at Robins Air Force Base maintenance depothttp://mil-embedded.com/news/rockwell-collins-to-provide-support-to-robins-air-force-base-maintenance-depot/
http://mil-embedded.com/news/rockwell-collins-to-provide-support-to-robins-air-force-base-maintenance-depot/#commentsThu, 11 Jan 2018 16:51:34 +0000Mariana Iriarte, Technology Editorhttp://tech.opensystemsmedia.com/application-lifecycle-management/?guid=fecc458669483f2ce38d88f74e7a3dcdAs the DLA’s first performance-based logistics (PBL) contract with the Air Force, the initial contract will run for three years with Rockwell Collins providing total supply chain management for replacement parts on the AN/ARC-171, AN/ARC-190, and AN/ARR-85 airborne communication products.

The PBL agreement will bring improved readiness to the Air Force by ensuring greater visibility to demand at the depot maintenance line, reduced inventory and infrastructure costs, value added logistics, engineering support and obsolescence management, officials say.

The sale also includes systems support and test equipment; spare and repair parts; publications and technical documentation; training and training equipment; U.S. Government and contractor engineering; logistics and technical support services; and other related elements of logistics and program support.

The proposed sale allows the U.S. military to support the Royal Air Force of Oman, further strengthen the U.S.-Omani military-to-military relationship, and ensure continued interoperability of forces and opportunities for bilateral training and exercises with Oman’s military forces.

This proposed sale of items and services will enable Oman’s 23 F-16s currently using Mode 4 IFF to become interoperable on Mode 4/5. Mode 5 IFF allows U.S. and partner airborne and surface armed forces to conduct complimentary air operations. Incremental OFP software upgrades required to support Mode 5 will provide additional incremental improvement for other associated F-16 subsystems.

The prime contractor will be Lockheed Martin of Fort Worth, Texas.

]]>http://mil-embedded.com/news/oman-will-upgrade-software-subsystems-on-its-f-16/feed/atom/0M7 Aeropace to provide life cycle support for the U.S. Army C-26 & UC-35 aircrafthttp://mil-embedded.com/news/m7-aeropace-to-provide-life-cycle-support-for-the-u-s-army-c-26-uc-35-aircraft/
http://mil-embedded.com/news/m7-aeropace-to-provide-life-cycle-support-for-the-u-s-army-c-26-uc-35-aircraft/#commentsThu, 21 Dec 2017 18:19:04 +0000Mariana Iriarte, Technology Editorhttp://tech.opensystemsmedia.com/application-lifecycle-management/?guid=31bec0d0cb276df6812a92c206d81167M7 Aerospace and Elbit Systems of America will work closely with their partner, DynCorp International, to provide LCCS services for the C-26 and UC-35 aircraft. These include aircraft modifications and upgrades, site and depot-level maintenance and material management.

The contract is worth an estimated $25 million for one-year base period. It also has five single year option periods, bringing the total contract value up to $176 million. The services will be managed from the San Antonio, Texas facility.

The study will use the Diligent’s Evolution Solution methodology to perform the analysis, as well as recommend the best solutions for disposition of USAF legacy systems. The solution includes a suite of tools, processes, and people to automate the analysis and recommendation process. Other tools that will be used include EvolveWare’s Intellisys Platform to extract the systems meta-data and provide artifacts for analysis.

Under contract, Diligent’s solution will identify the deltas between USAF legacy systems and the Oracle EBS ERP and provide recommendations on how to best implement the functionality within EBS. The implementation will provide a technical roadmap for potential Government consolidation of functionality into, or severability of functionality from the existing/planned Military Personnel Data System (MILPDS)/Air Force Integrated Personnel and Pay System (AFIPPS) programs.

ASHBURN, Va. – December 1, 2017 – Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division has introduced a new 24-Port 6U VMEbus Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Switch module. The VME-690, with built-in support for up to 24 GbE interfaces, is Curtiss-Wright’s third generation of VME GbE Switches. It provides a lower power (~35W), pin-compatible replacement for earlier designs while adding advanced data security features. The VME-690 enables system designers to modernize their legacy VME systems and ensures that new designs have access to the latest secure data communications technology.

Today, VME-based solutions continue to provide critical embedded computing in a wide array of front-line deployed aerospace and defense applications. New VME module designs, such as the VME-690, enable system integrators to perform technology insertions that deliver improved performance and high-speed connections to advanced sensors. The VME-690’s high data link count enables system designers to bring new capabilities to existing platforms. Compared to alternative VME Ethernet switches that offer unmanaged switching with no control over network policy, the VME-690 provides fully managed switching with a wide range of features for classifying and filtering traffic to prioritize key applications and enforce security policies.

Highly Flexible GbE Interface Configuration

To provide the highest level of flexibility, the VME-690 features up to 20 1000BASE-T interfaces available from the backplane, with support for 10/100/1000 and auto-negotiation. It also provides system integrators with options for additional Ethernet interfaces, such as four additional 100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet interfaces to the backplane or four 1000BASE-SX optical interfaces. For connections to external networks, the VME-690 can also be configured with an XMC-620 ESR module that provides a fully-featured Cisco® IOS® services router with VPN, firewall, and mobile networking capabilities.

Pin-Compatible Upgrade for VME System Networking

The VME-690 provides a pin-compatible replacement for Curtiss-Wright’s earlier VME-680 and VME-682 switches. It delivers a full range of modern multi-layer switching features, including support for the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol to ensure high-precision synchronization for real-time or signal processing applications using networked processors. The VME-690 features a highly integrated, enterprise-class switch device that delivers line-rate switching on all ports across all packet sizes. Integrated multi-layer switching software provides an extensive set of features for monitoring and enforcing traffic policies. Management features include a powerful command line interface, SNMP, and web-based options. The module’s in-band management and networking features provide support for both IPv4 and IPv6.

Enhanced Security

As embedded computers transition from stand-alone appliances to connected systems, the importance of network security continues to grow. The VME-690 is designed with cyber-security in mind and integrates features to limit and mitigate potential vulnerabilities. These include multiple management interfaces for configuring and monitoring the network. In addition, administrative interfaces can be individually disabled to limit access, protected with passwords, or secured with standards-based encryption. Hardware write-protection features can be used to prevent unauthorized or unintentional modification of the switch configuration. The VME-690’s newer software mitigates the risk of system compromise caused by vulnerabilities in older operating system or networking services. To ensure the highest level of cyber-security protection, the VME-690 is supported with regular software updates and a commitment to software maintenance over the life of the product.

Sales inquiries: Please forward all Sales and reader service inquiries to ds@curtisswright.com.

About Curtiss-Wright Corporation

Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a global innovative company that delivers highly engineered, critical function products and services to the commercial, industrial, defense and energy markets. Building on the heritage of Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers, Curtiss-Wright has a long tradition of providing reliable solutions through trusted customer relationships. The company employs approximately 8,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.curtisswright.com.

Wokingham, UK – 27 November 2017 – EnSilica has announced a key innovation that will help the rapid development of autonomous cars. Its eSi-ADAS™ RADAR Imaging Co-processor will accelerate the commercialisation of autonomous vehicles by solving the current problem of RADAR data overload and resolution by handling this in a dedicated co-processor to enable tracking of potentially hundreds of objects to be made in real time. It has up to 20x lower power requirements than today’s lower resolution systems and lower system costs, as well as outperforming them in terms of speed and accuracy by up to 10x. Its importance to the industry was recognised at the prestigious TechWorks Awards on 23rd November 2017 when it won the Automotive Electronics Innovation & Excellence Award.

“Until now, we have been under the RADAR, so to speak, with this product,” explained David Doyle, EnSilica’s Commercial Director. “Our focus has been quietly promoting our ADAS solution into the automotive market. This has been really successful and elements of our ADAS are shipping in production volume already. The timing is now right to leverage this adoption and take it to manufacturers around the world, capitalising on the success so far. And, winning this award, will help accelerate the adoption of this British innovation that solves a major problem for self-drive cars.”

Data overload in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are becoming increasingly complex as they advance from their simple origins of cruise control and parking assistance to fully autonomous driving. One of the challenges facing OEMs is that a combination of Video, RADAR and LIDAR is needed to cover all operational conditions, which is expensive. This is because current RADAR sensors lack the imaging capability, 3D and 360° coverage that is available from LIDAR but LIDAR does not work well at night or in fog so the two have to be used in conjunction with Video. This creates a problem of large amounts of data that needs to be processed in real time.

David Doyle added, “EnSilica has done a number of projects for customers in the automotive area and it became clear to us that there is a need for a solution for the autonomous/self-drive car market to effectively handle the huge amount of real time data needed to provide an accurate picture of the surroundings of the car so that it could drive itself. Also, by improving the resolution of the RADAR part of the system, the need and cost of the LIDAR component could potentially be removed, providing significant system cost reduction.”

eSi-ADAS is optimised to handle RADAR data

However, increasing the RADAR resolution creates even more data that uses up most of the capacity of the system’s central processor. EnSilica’s innovation is to design a dedicated co-processor that is optimised to handle this particular type of data. It is a similar solution to that used in computing of having a general processor and a dedicated graphics processor unit (GPU), and EnSilica has filed a patent to protect its innovation.

The co-processor chip offloads the RADAR target tracking from the car’s Electronic Control Unit (ECU), freeing up ECU resources to concentrate safety critical decisions such as target identification and fusing RADAR data with camera video information. The benefits include lower system cost, lower power requirements and faster precision real-time tracking with an ultralow maximum latency of 20ms to enable critical safety decisions to be made with confidence.

As a result, EnSilica’s solution has high resolution image sampling capability, elevation and 360° coverage from multiple sensors, plus it works at night and in any weather conditions. The result is an detailed RADAR map of the kind needed for future autonomous vehicles that works in conjunction with a video system.. The co-processor chip can support up to 256 virtual antennas in a 3D array with ADC sampling rates up to 100 Mega samples per second of raw data. This provides coverage for parking and short and long range RADAR in a multi-mode sensor, removing the need for and costs of ultrasonic sensors for parking.

The eSi-ADAS™ Imaging Co-processor has dedicated mathematical hardware engines to demodulate the RADAR signals using Range, Doppler, Azimuth and Elevation Fast Fourier Transforms which are then detected and the resulting measurements are tracked using a high performance Kalman Filter. This means that the final output is a low data rate object list with position, speed and confidence values for over 128 objects that can be used by an ECU for sensor fusion with other RADAR object lists or images. To provide the most precise plot extraction, eSi-ADAS operates in conjunction with modern, fast chirp-capable RF devices. EnSilica has filed patents on chirp processing techniques to overcome drawbacks usually associated with processing fast chirp modulation, notably its high computational and memory requirements.

Advancing the development of self-drive cars

“Our ADAS Co-processor provides a faster time to market for chip and system developers together with manufacturers of autonomous cars,” concluded Dr David Wheeler, EnSilica’s Technical Director. “eSi-ADAS is easy to integrate and provides a lower system cost, especially as LIDAR is potentially no longer required, and up to 20x lower power requirements than existing solutions as well as significantly outperforming them in terms of speed and accuracy. This innovation provides a major step forward towards cost effective, safe, self-drive cars as it provided a dedicated solution to handling the previously, almost overwhelming, amount of data. With this processing burden offloaded and the provision of almost instant awareness of the surrounding, the self-drive car is now much closer to commercial reality.”

EnSilica has built its reputation as being of the leading silicon design houses and is now managing the entire process right through to supply for many of its customers. The eSi-ADAS RADAR Imaging Co-processor is one of the next generation products developed by the company to sell itself rather than for a customer. This can be either as IP to be integrated onto a customer’s chip or as a stand-alone chip from EnSilica. This is a major shift in the company’s business model and is designed to add regular income streams from the sales of its own proprietary products based on in-house, innovative technologies.

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AICSYS Inc. maintains your legacy system while help you migrate to the new application. Some existing Industrial and Military automations were invested heavily in expensive system such as control automation and data acquisition application. Legacy System appears when an obsolete or phase out computer hardware are still in use; The main cause for legacy system when a functional system cannot be reintegrated or transferred to a newer system due to hardware functionalities and new technology compatibilities. Countless systems were being neglected or left out for the continuity due to the original manufacturer decided a product is no longer in demand or does not generates enough profit. This is where the EOL or phase-out product problem comes from, most of time. Especially, when a costly system is in fine working condition, and only needs a maintenance or in need of parts replacement. This is what AICSYS Inc. Legacy System Solution and OEM/ODM customization project services could provide, a small MOQ requirement with reasonable price.